“Pig Boy is a magical, life-changing adventure full of deep learning and memorable characters told by a master storyteller.”
— Betareader response to a recent draft
Olwen is beautiful and hawk-eyed. Her father is a homicidal giant who is fated to die if she ever gets married. Enter Pig Boy, straight from the sty and with nothing to lose…
Pig Boy goes from pig sty to King Arthur’s court, cursed with love for Olwen, and knows he must find her before the curse kills him.
Olwen’s father, the giant, gives Pig Boy forty impossible tasks to achieve, or die. Pig Boy has the help of Arthur and all his warriors, magicians and even the King of the Otherworld but the tasks keep on getting harder. Finally he has to grab the golden scissors from between the ears of the Great Wild Boar who is enormous, evil and violent. Pig Boy knows that time and magic will soon run out.
Pig Boy and his companions discover the Oldest Animals, free Mabon the Eternal Youth from his imprisonment, defeat giants and work with the King of the Otherworld. But then they meet the Great Wild Boar. Not even Arthur’s men can defeat him and everywhere the monstrous Boar goes he destroys more land and kills more people. He has to be stopped or Arthur will lose his throne and the whole kingdom will be destroyed. Does Pig Boy have the answer?
“He kept on going until he felt a darkness even deeper than the darkness around and inside him and, in its centre, a great burnished silence. He stood there, just himself, his breath and his heartbeat. And somehow he knew what to do next.”
— Pig Boy Ch.16
Background
Pig Boy is the story of Culhwch and Olwen from the Welsh medieval manuscript known as the Mabinogion. It is the story of a young man cursed with love for Olwen, a beautiful young woman who is also a giant’s daughter. The young hero (Culhwch in the original, ‘Pig Boy’ in my version - Culhwch means ‘slender pig’) enlists the help of King Arthur and the adventure starts.
In this story you will encounter an Arthurian court like no other. Forget wimples and courtly love. This story has people who can talk the languages of the animals; a poet whose forehead emits a golden light; the King of the Otherworld; an army of ants that come to the rescue and the biggest and scariest wild boar you’ve ever seen, who has a golden comb and scissors lodged between his ears. And I’m not making any of this up! Everything in the book happened somewhere in the original story or in related Welsh mythology.
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This is a traditional story that was finally written down about eight hundred years ago. Before that it was told orally and evolved over many centuries and includes many well-known folk tale motifs that you might be familiar with. It is set mainly in Wales and many of the locations are clearly identifiable today and I have visited many of them on walking trips with friends and on my own. Most of the images on this site are my photographs from those trips. It is a strange and wonderful feeling standing in the places where the story ‘happened’.
Audience
When I started to write my first draft I was imagining a young-ish readership but on my first re-read I could tell it wasn’t working. It just didn’t ring true because I wasn’t writing as myself. I took a deep breath and started again, just letting the story tell itself. I had been telling this story for many years before writing it down, so I had no problem with what happens and could concentrate on how it happens and draw lots of detail out that you don’t have time for in a storytelling performance. Several drafts later I sent it off to a number of betareaders to get their reactions (some of which you’ll find on this site). They had some great suggestions which I wove into the story and, when asked who they thought would enjoy this book, they all agreed that it was Young Adult material that would also appeal to adults. Phew! Just what I was hoping for.
The only challenging material in the story for me is the violence. This story came out of a society ruled by a warrior elite and military skills were highly prized and armed conflict frequent. I have no argument with the discipline, skill, camaraderie and bravery of being a warrior, it’s the killing and maiming I have a problem with. Pig Boy is trained by some top warriors and he experiences an interesting tension between pride in his hard-won skills and his revulsion at violence and coercion. In the end he has to make a choice and you’ll find out how he copes when the book comes out!
A Love Story
For Pig Boy love is, literally, a curse. His new step-mother has plans for him and when Pig Boy refuses to obey she curses him with love for Olwen, a beautiful young woman whose father happens to be a homicidal and cruel giant. He finally gets to meet her and she is even more beautiful than he had imagined. She has the usual ‘hair as golden as the flowers of the broom, and cheeks as red as the foxglove’ but she also has ‘eyes as clear and wild as the new-flown hawk’, a bit like the one below (snapped on the Wales Coastal Path in Bro Morgannwg/the Vale of Glamorgan). In the medieval text, it is Olwen’s voice that keeps him strong when Pig Boy has to face her father, the giant. I have increased her role in the story and given her more to do and say than in the Mabinogi text.
Olwen has eyes like the new flown hawk
Publication Date October 20th 2023
Currently available r from Cinnamon Press Waterstones, Amazon UK & Coles Books etc
An Adventure Story
Luckily for Pig Boy his cousin happens to be King Arthur. You might have to re-calibrate who you think King Arthur is. In this story he is a warrior but from a much earlier age than the medieval stories. He is connected with landscape, the Otherworld and magic. Towards the end of the story Arthur has to lead his huntsmen and warriors to hunt and kill the Great Wild Boar. This is one of the impossible tasks given to Pig Boy by the giant. More specifically he has to seize the golden comb and scissors from between the Wild Boar’s ears. In the medieval version the Pig Boy character disappears for long chunks of the story but I have opted to keep him much more central. Although he could never have accomplished what he needed to do without Arthur, in my version, Pig Boy discovers that his path will lead him away from being another member of the armed aristocracy and into something radically different.
A Mythological Story
Animals that talk, the search for the Oldest Animal, visiting the Otherworld, giants and monsters all point to a time and culture that predate the medieval manuscript version of these stories. It takes us back to a time when the natural world was seen as being alive and sentient in its own right. It is not just people that have ‘souls’ but tools, animals, disease and weather. The Otherworld is like ours but more powerful, mysterious and magical and passing between the worlds is difficult and dangerous. The mythological world of the story is messy. How else could it be in order to help us understand the world we are in? For me, the illogical and sometimes haphazard mythology of the story feel just like the tools to help us navigate through irrational and dangerous times.
A Magical Story
There is magic everywhere in this story. The magic of transformation, curses, love, nature, animals and song. I’ve used a lot of song and incantation in the story. Traditional communities all over the world still use song and incantation in order to heal, protect, welcome and sanctify, so it makes sense that the people in this story use them as well. It is important that the singing is communal and public. Everybody owns these songs and their power lies in their being sung by everyone.
Step boldly on the path and your way will be clear
Look bright-eyed on the Worlds and they will help you
The moon’s gaze and the star’s guidance be yours
The sun’s glory and gleam to lead you
The secrets of the night’s dark to counsel you
Journey Blessing Pig Boy Chapter 2
A Story Set in the Welsh Landscape
The more I work on this story the more deeply entwined it becomes with the Welsh landscape, The story also veers off to Ireland and Cornwall but the action in Wales is very precisely located, especially in the hunt of the Great Wild Boar. He landed in Porth Clais in Pembrokeshire, made his way to Cwm Cerwyn in the Preseli Mountains and from there his trail is clearly marked up until the final battle on the shore of the lake Llyn y Fan Fawr in the Brecon Beacons.
One of my favourite bits of landscape lore is Carn Cafall (aka Carn Cafallt) near where the River Elan flows into the River Wye just south of Rhaeadr, right in the middle of Wales. King Arthur spotted the Great Wild Boar down in the valley and needed to gather his huntsmen who were on the other side of the valley. As Arthur galloped off the long way round, his faithful hunting dog Cafall leapt over the valley to warn the huntsmen that Arthur was on his way. The dog leapt with such strength and passion that he left the imprint of his paw in the rock where he jumped which, of course, can be seen to this very day. This episode is not in the manuscript of the Mabinogion but it is such a wonderful anecdote I had to include it in Pig Boy.
The image below is of the Wicklow Mountains which I took from the top of Mynydd Cybi/Holyhead Mountain on Ynys Môn/Anglesey. King Arthur headed that way in pursuit of the Great Wild Boar.
“The nails on your mother’s hands and feet grew and curved into tough, yellow claws. She sat there in the swamp, stinking and crazy, chewing on roots and frogs.”
Pig Boy, Chapter 1
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